A kind of success

As I mentioned in my first post, I've been trying to get a shot with a plane crossing in front of the moon for a long time. When I shot this picture, however, I was looking for a photograph of the moon and colorful fall leaves.



There's a connection between the plane and the glider (in a large image you can actually see the tow line), just as there is a connection between the earth and the moon (think tides).

This is a cropped shot of the glider passing in front of the moon.



By the way, I just noticed that I've been publishing this blog for one year. Happy blog birthday to me.

moon and clouds

I was trying to take photographs of the crescent moon with earthshine through my telescope, but the moon disappeared behind a cloud bank. I took this picture when the moon peeked out for a minute.



I like the pink clouds lit by the setting sun. My exposure was 1/320th at f6.

This second photo was taken a little while later. There is still some light in the sky, but not on the clouds. This photo was taken at 1/160th. By the way, if you ever want to find out the times of moonrise and moonset (or sunrise and sunset) for your location, check out the U.S. Naval Observatory site: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.php




Right after taking the first photo, I aimed the telescope at a jet plane with its contrail lit by the setting sun.



Now if I had the moon and plane in the same frame, that would be a good picture. I'm still trying for that photograph.

Night moves

There's a lot of movement in this photograph, if you look carefully.

The picture was taken at 1:16 a.m. The exposure was 30 seconds at f5. The long exposure allowed the moonlight to illuminate the grass and clouds. The moving clouds were blurred in the long exposure, as were the leaves on the top of the tree at right.

The long exposure and the rotation of the earth also caused the stars to trail; they are elongated instead of being points. An even longer exposure would leave longer streaks or trails as the stars moved across the sky.

The constellation Orion is visible at the top of the frame. Orion is a winter constellation that can be seen late at night (or early in the morning) in the fall. The reason I was out taking pictures was that I received an email that auroras might be visible in mid- to low-latitudes. I did not see any.

Another lightning photo

I did some storm chasing last night. The clouds to the northeast were lighting up, and I could even here some thunder, so I drove in that direction. Unfortunately, after driving for 20 minutes, I did not see any lightning bolts.
Then lightning appeared to the south. I drove to a golf course on a hill and took the photograph above.

The golf course green was lit by a bright light on the clubhouse. Too bad they took the flags out of the pins.

That frame was one of three with lightning bolts. But I missed the more impressive shots with lightning over much more of the sky. I guess timing is everything.
My exposures ranged from 15 to 30 seconds. The storm never got any closer. But there are still a few weeks of summer left.

Shadow in the sky

The sky can add drama and interest to a photo. Or the sky can be the subject of the photo, as in this picture I took last month.

The contrail, or condensation trail, from a jet is casting a shadow on the clouds in the background. Here's a vertical version:



I always try to keep an eye on the sky, especially in the early morning or at twilight. I saw the contrail and shadow while on my way to a convenience store to get milk.

It's all about the lightning

I like lightning photographs. Whenever storms are approaching, I check www.weather.com to see whether they will hit Middletown, N.Y. I have a one favorite location I try to get to before the storms hit. There's a nice view of some church steeples to the west (where the storms usuually come from), and I try to get dramatic bolts of lightning in the background.

A few weeks ago I went to this spot, but before I could get any photos, heavy rain started falling. I have other spots where I get a good view of the eastern horizon. I head there to get the storms moving away from Middletown.

So I drove to a spot facing east that has power lines in the foreground. Because the rain was still falling pretty heavily, I wedged my tripod next to me in the front seat of the car. I took more than 100 long exposure photographs. The only one with lightning was blurred. I must have moved the tripod.

This is a photo without lightning that I thought was interesting anyway. I believe the lights are from a passing ambulance. Most of my pictures only had streaks from headlights and brake lights at the bottom of the frame.



A few days ago, another line of storms rolled through and I went back to the same spot. This time I set up my tripod outside the car despite the rain. I took about another 100 pictures. This was one of two with lightning.



This photograph was a 2.5-second exposure because it was still twilight. The other picture, taken at night, was a 25-second exposure.

Here is a screenshot showing some of the frames without lightning.

It's all about the light

Last week I took photographs at my daughter's elementary school chorus concert. The concert was held in an auditorium, but for some reason the children were on risers in front of the stage instead of on the stage.

That didn't affect the sound of the concert, but did affect the light falling on the singers. The children were mainly lit by two sets of lights on the sides of the stage. So the light was not as bright as normal stage lighting, and there were more harsh shadows visible from the middle of the auditorium.

In the following photograph taken from in front of the stage, you can see some of the shadows. The paper plate are causing some, but not all, of the shadows.



When I moved to a different angle, the light was much more dramatic. Some of the photos were blurred because I had to use a slow shutter speed (ranging from 1/125th. to 1/40th of a second). Some of the photos, like this one, I really liked. I think the boy looking up is checking out the circle of changing colored lights on the ceiling of the auditorium.

Road race finish line

I took pictures at a 5K road race near my home last weekend. I used my new mountain bike to get runners at the start, near the 2-mile mark and at the finish line.

One of the best pictures came near the finish line. But the photograph is about spectators, not runners.



Sometimes it pays to turn around and see what is happening behind you. Sometimes reaction photos are better than action photos.

Stars over Schunnemunk Mountain

One of my favorite spots to take photographs is in Salisbury Mills by the Moodna Viaduct, which is a tall railroad bridge over the Moodna Creek. I've photographed there at night before, but not in the winter.

My idea was to get a snowy field in the foreground, the trestle and then a starry sky in the background. But some of the snow had melted, I was having trouble focusing on the trestle and the sky in that direction was spoiled by light pollution.



That's why I took this photograph over the mountain. This was the only frame I had with a car driving by on Otterkill Road. I was using the 10-second self-timer so I would not shake the camera at the start of the 15-second exposure. For this frame I just tried to push the shutter gently and get the car in the picture.

It was a cold and windy twilight. But I still wanted to get a photograph of the crescent moon and Venus in the western sky. I knew the pair would be close together because I got an email alert from Spaceweather.com.
I went out just after sunset but had trouble finding the moon. As it got darker, the moon and Venus were easy to see. Then I just had to find something interesting to put in the foreground of my photograph. I tried a church steeple before finding a view of Maple Hill Elementary School.

Then I took some closeup photographs with a telephoto lens. Some were blurred because of the gusts of wind. The exposure was 1.3 seconds at f/4 with a 300mm lens.

Venus is at the lower right, the star Deneb Algedi is at the upper left, and Nashira is between the Moon and Venus.

Christmas kitty

I was taking pictures of my children opening presents on Christmas morning when I heard a noise behind me. It was not Santa scurrying up the chimney but Louie sneaking up the bannister to play with the decorations. I used a slow shutter speed and a Vivitar 285 flash on my Canon 20D. Then I went back to taking more photos of my children.

cross country meet

I started taking sports photographs in high school and never stoppped. I've shot NFL games and college games along the way, but I still like taking pictures at high school events. The access is great. Most of the time I can shoot from whereever I want.

I even like taking pictures at cross country meets, which some photographers find boring. After all, it's just runners running. But you can be very creative at the meets by using different backgrounds, different parts of the course, different lenses and different shutter speeds.

The New York state cross country championship meet was held in Warwick, which is about 30 minutes from my home in Middletown. I got to shoot 10 races, which gave me the opporunity to try things a few times until I got the photo I wanted.

I shot the start of three or four races before getting this photo.



First I tried shooting from ground level. Then I noticed a tall ladder by the finish line. I set my shutter speed to 1/40 and braced the camera on top of the ladder. I have my shot line up perfectly, and then a silver van stopped on the road behind the starter. That ruined the photo for me.

So I waited one more race and got the picture I wanted.

Another work in progress

We have lots of squirrels around our house in Middletown, N.Y. Every once in a while I see one jumping from our fence to the roof of our garage. My idea, as a photographer who loves to shoot sports, was to get a peak action shot of the animal in the air.

Unfortunately, as soon as the squirrel would see me, it would take flight before I could take the photograph. I even tried set up in the yard and then have one of my children go around the house and herd the squirrel in the right direction.

This photo is close, but not exactly what I was looking for. It's a cropped version of a horizontal photo.



The moral of this story: if you see something interesting but don't get the photo, just be patient. Wait for the moment to happen again.

Close, but no cigar

For months I've been trying to get a photograph of a jet, or any kind of plane, passing in front of the moon. I know it's been done before: check out this photo.

My best attempt so far was a near miss in August. I used a Digital Rebel and shot through my 100mm Orion refractor telescope.



I was too early and then too late. I've tried again since then, but have not seen an aircraft cross the moon. Maybe I should shoot near an airport instead of in front of my house.

Vacation photos

I've been on vacation the past week, and I've been taking lots of photos: photos at night, photos at dawn, and lots of fall folliage photos.
For months I've been wanting to get a photograph of a moonlight canal boat ride on the D&H Canal in Cuddebackville. Saturday night I did, sort of. The ride was over by the time I got there.



This picture was taken as people were leaving the boat for the night. I used a 25-second exposure with my Canon 20D. To light the boat and the trees on the left, I walked up to the boat and fired a flash: once at the boat and once at the trees.

I like the way the photo came out. But I think I dropped my compact flash card case that night in the dark. I went back early the next morning but could not find the case. I did decide to go to another location to take more photos.

I drove down Route 209 to Port Jervis and went to Point Peter, which overlooks the city. The fog from the Delaware and Neversink rivers was beautiful.



I'm going to try to get photos at another canal ride later this month. I might also try to get back to that spot above Port Jervis.

Welcome

For the past 25 years I've been a photojournalist at the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y. Fairly recently I've started taking more photographs for myself. This blog will be a place to show some of those photographs and talk about how and why they were taken.

As a staff photographer, the pictures I take for the newspaper are owned by the newspaper. And designers at the newspaper decide how the photos will look in print. That's why I like taking my own photographs.